Parents of boarders - please help! (Re: homesickness)

[Sundressandsandals]

Dd 1 (13) has just started boarding school last weekend. She's new to the school after living overseas most of her life and we're in the UK until Christmas, when we'll be moving to a remote country where the education at secondary level is not of the standard we want for her.

We all recognise that in an ideal world we would all be together, but that the school she is now attending will enable her to be settled for her last 5 years of school and offers opportunities that she wouldn't have with us.

But she is so, so homesick and my heart is breaking. We've not spoken on the phone (having been told that voices from home just exacerbate homesickness in the first weeks) but have been instant messaging in the evenings and she seems to be spending most of her out of school hours in tears. She's being supported by the (very nice) matron and housemistress, who have been keeping in contact with us, but she is so utterly miserable.

Have your dcs been through this? Will it get better? Can you have such an unhappy start and get through the homesickness to a point where you can be happy boarding, or do some children never settle to it? I'm feeling so wretched at putting her through this - please share your stories.

Thank you for listening.

[NewLife4Me]

You say you are more closely familiar with their daily school routine than most families are at a state school? But what does that translate as exactly? You have read the course layout, seen lesson breakdowns, read detailed reports from teachers, presumably?

But if you live with your child, you get their personal feedback on lessons. Face to face. Every day. With those subtle intonations and mannerisms that just don't really translate through Skype.

I know exactly what my dd is doing at all times, the results of tests and exams, behaviour, timetable, concerts, academic reports, in fact everything she does, reported daily. My other children had the most awful education, so this is wonderful.

Unfortunately, the personal feedback we got from our other children were tales of horror tbh. My experience of the schools in our area were also of horror. My only regret is that I knew nothing of H.ed until dd came along.

Skype manages to put my mind at rest that dd is indeed happy, enjoying life and completely in heaven. This translates beautifully through Skype, face to face. I only have to see her face to know this, we are very close.

[DarklingJane]

Having 13 years ago been to Disney in Florida - Wicksteed park looks like Nirvana

[Want2bSupermum]

OP - It is hard the first 3-4 weeks. I would send a big parcel of sweets and treats like poptarts along with some nice magazines. Yeah it's junk but it will give her something to share with the other girls.

I would be calling the housemistress at this point and if things have not improved after half term you need to consider another boarding school, ideally one that starts at 13. She will only be a term in so relationships won't be as firm.

Whore I respectfully wholly disagree with you. My father was connected with me in a way that he knew from my breath down the phone what my mood was. He called 3-4 times a week no matter where he was in the world and sent postcards almost daily along with long letters about once a week to all 3 of us that enabled us to connect to him.

[NewLife4Me]

I too would like to know the exceptional circumstances.

[BertrandRussell]

Exceptional circumstances? Well, there is a poster in here whose child's boarding is completely driven by the child because of an exceptional talent. Extremely complicated family circumstances. Weekly boarding is sometimes a good option when both parents work very long hours (my godsons go to school on Monday morning and come back on Friday evening, which they both prefer to the live in nanny they had before- both parents have long hours high pressure jobs) Apart from that? Nah, can't think of any.

[MarshaBrady]

Your poor dd. Not being able to speak on the phone seems so harsh. That would send me into a spin if I felt that homesick.

On whether it gets better, I don't have boarding dc, but did board. And only weekly at age 12. It took about 2 years for it all to pass. Yes I had friends, and yes it was all very active but when you want to be at home it is different to speaking on the phone or skype.

[wreckingball]

Wicksteed park was not any sort of Nirvana in the 70's.
They did have a water slide thing though but we weren't allowed to go on it and anyway the queues were a mile long.
The last time I went I took my kids, we stood behind a young girl in a queue who had the worst nits I have ever seen.
It went down in our family history, poor kid.

[NewLife4Me]

Thank you I think.

My dd wanted to join this school from being 7, originally we said 14/ y9 but she wore us down.
We took her out of school at aged 8 because she said it interfered with her music. It has been the centre of her life well before this and she is very talented.
When we speak to her she tells us she finally feels as though she belongs somewhere and her friends don't think she's a freak or weird to want to do more music practice, because they are the same.
She knows what she wants and said she would never forgive us if we didn't let her do it.
Our decision was one of what we thought best for dd, but we are also glad that she will get a suitable academic education as well, but this is the bonus rather than the rationale.
We live in a deprived area and the schools are notoriously bad. There are two outstanding secondaries throughout our borough, a few good schools but mostly not very good.
She is part of MADS the gov scheme that provides education for talented musicians and dancers at the specialist schools throughout the UK. We could never have afforded the fees and the scheme is means tested so anyone irrespective of income can apply/attend.
She could have been a day pupil but wanted to board.
I miss her so much I can't tell you all, but we believe it would have been very selfish not to let her do this.

I don't think our reasons are any better or worse than anyone else who decides on boarding school, it's the same.

[BertrandRussell]

"reasons are any better or worse than anyone else who decides on boarding school, it's the same"
With respect, if isn't. It was a child led decision- and she is not far from home....

[Brioche202]

I hated boarding.I never got over the homesickness, but you get more resigned to it.
The school drilled into you that you were selfish if you burden your parents with your misery when they are too far to do anything about it.sad, sad, sad.Would never inflict it on my own DC

[DarklingJane]

Wreckingball- be grateful. Our family days out in the 70s were walking up Beacon Fell (or sometimes just driving past it.) In the rain normally. I would have killed just to have even glanced at a water slide.



Oh and by the way I think exceptional circumstances can be when the school and the child are such an obvious fit that if you can do it you should do it.

[NewLife4Me]

I appreciate there are all sorts of different reasons but I haven't heard of anybody who didn't think they were doing the best for their child.
Even at schools like dd there are those who don't fit, and leave.
So when the fit was deemed so perfect initially, it is obvious to say that you never can tell.
I don't mean necessarily from a homesickness pov, although I know this is the most important to begin with and the OP's problem.
I think under the circumstances we help the OP and not think the worst tbh.
This must be heart breaking for her.
My dd would be homesick if she couldn't call us, that's ridiculous. I would be on the phone immediately and breaking my heart.
Poor love probably only needs the reassurance she is allowed and to call when she wants.

[formerboarder]

I was very much like newlife's dd - I won a DES scholarship to one of the specialist music schools in the 80s. I desperately wanted to go - I was the youngest of 4 children, who had all either left home or would do so soon after - with quite a controlling mother - I wanted to go partly for the music and partly to avoid being smothered.

I was completely taken by surprise by my homesickness, which hit me like a freight train. It lasted until I made really good friends - which took me a while. I had expected to find lots more kindred spirits amongst musicians, and it came as a shock to find that just because someone shares your passion, it doesn't make them your soul-mate. I used to shut myself in my practice room and cry. I'm not sure how long it went on - I remember being happier in the second term, happier still in the summer term and feeling much more settled in my second year. I think the homesickness was exacerbated by a really strict housemistress, who was ex-army, very strict and thought that warmth was unhygienic. She retired after a year and the new regime was much more homely, sympathetic and humane. And warmer - we were allowed duvets!

Then I settled and made friends, amazing, wonderful friends. We brought each other up and we still - 30-something years later - see each other regularly, understand each other completely, pick up as if it were yesterday. My brother was my "responsible adult" at my 18th birthday and met many of my friends for the first time. He commented that it was a surreal feeling, as if seeing me in a room full of siblings that he didn't know.

It took me a while to settle in, but I did and it ended up being the happiest time of my life. Hugs to you and to your DD - it's a difficult time - change is always hard - but she needs to give it time. I think you've done the right thing in letting her know that if she really doesn't settle you won't force her to stay there, but she does need to give it a chance.

[NewLife4Me]

formerboarder

Thank you. I will most definitely keep my eye on the practice room and thank you so much for sharing
She hasn't really given home much thought but she is so busy finding her feet, well arse from elbow really it might come later.
I'm glad we see her over the weekends.

[formerboarder]

Just one other thing to add - more relevant to newlife than to other worried Mums, perhaps - but I didn't end up going into a career in music. At 16, I decided I wanted it to be a hobby, not my life, but I have never regretted going to a specialist music school. Careerwise, I chose myself a different kind of rat race altogether, but have always continued to play and it has opened some amazing doors - overseas tours, an education my parents wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for, free tickets to every event at uni because my band played for an hour or so, friends for life and a hobby I can lose myself in, alone or with others.

[NewLife4Me]

Thanks former

You have given me food for thought and many thanks for sharing.

I think your story is just as relevant to others, it could be the decision to be a Lawyer rather than a Doctor for other parents. Banker? Business owners?
Yes, this still happens every year. Some decide they want to do something different recently linguistics and science spring to mind.

[SirVixofVixHall]

I've thought more about my boarding experience lately, so this thread was strangely pertinent. I was only a boarder for a year. My parents had never been keen on me boarding, and they moved house to be near the school. I was homesick, but I was also a cheerful child, so I got on with it, and I would have been considered happy by the school, I even considered myself happy, at the time.. However in hindsight I can see that it changed my relationship to my parents, particularly my mother. I had learned to live without her, and I never quite restored the closeness. It also made it really hard for me to readjust to being a daygirl, which affected my work, and had repurcussions for years down the line. I didn't turn to my parents when I should have, during a terrible time in my 20s. I've only come to realise now, 40 years later, quite what a devastating effect it had on me, to live day to day without love. I still remember the suffocating lump in my throat feeling when a letter came from home. The holding it in and not crying.
Not a single girl I was friends with has sent their own child to board. I have co-slept with mine, breastfed for years, and I think that is in part because of the pain of distance from my own mother.
I thought more about this thread after posting op. And I would say that no education is worth the separation. Weekly boarding might be just about ok, for older children, but anything else is too much time away, too many small intimate moments that you will never glean back. Relationships are build on the casual, the everyday caring, as a pp said-the kiss on the back of the neck as you walk past your child. The holding them tight after a nightmare. No school, however child-friendly, can give that, because the people caring are paid to care. They do not love your child.

[formerboarder]

Sirvix, it sounds as if you had a hard time of it. Boarding certainly doesn't suit everyone -I had friends who never settled - I wonder if your experience was more about the school than boarding per se? Although I think I was certainly more independent than my non-boarding siblings, I'm closer to my parents than they are. And I co-slept and breastfed my baby too.

DH and I were both boarders, and FWIW, I would send my ds to boarding school if it was what he wanted, but I'd rather he didn't, it's not necessary for our family and he doesn't like the idea, so it isn't an issue.

[happygardening]

I don't do Skype so no "polished and performed interaction" I'm afraid.
If I find out in the morning thar my was DS is sick in the night I'm fine with this, there are other people equally as capable as I am and who care around him who'll deal with it.
I've never expected daily feedback on lessons (do you really expect or need this Whoregasm?) I'm sorry in my book any parents whether their child is at a day school or boarding school who reads course layouts and break down of lessons etc is micro managing their children's lives. We get three reports a year which I briefly look at. Just to add I never did this with DS1 who was at home. I'm just not that kind of parent.
You can tell what sort of day they've had by the way they walk in the door You clearly don't go to work in many parents world mine included they are not always there when DC walks in the door. My job regularly: two to three times a month means I'm away from home for 24 hours.
I don't know what the hell "textured" family life is but I do know that our family life is a very happy one, that we are completely secure in our love for each other and the bonds between us are very strong. We are quite simply a very happy easy going warm caring eccentric family nothing more nothing less. Boarding hadn't made us like this, it's just how we are.
My point about dysfunctional families which I suspect your being deliberately obtuse about is that not one dysfunctional family I've met in 30 years either the parents boarded or the children boarded, sending your children to boarding doesn't mean you are or that it's going to make you a dysfunctional family.
I find it extraordinary that anyone can remain so dogmatic despite endless parents telling you a different persepctive from your opinion based on their current experience. Are you saying we're all wrong? I find that a very arrogant stance to take. I have absolutely no problem with the fact that you might not want to send your DC's to a boarding school because you don't think it would work for you but why criticise parents who it clearly is working for especially when you don't personally know the children or the families. Why do you assume that only you know how to be a good and effective parent?

[happygardening]

I am very very close to my DS whose at boarding school, we were exceptionally close to each other before he went and boarding has not has a negative impact on how close we are.
Of course it may effect some relationship but my DH who didn't board is not close to his mother at all and he often feels he would have had a better relationship with his mother if he boarded.
You cannot generalise each and every family is different.

[Saltedcaramel4]

Could you home educate her instead? There's a lot to be said for families being together

[happygardening]

Yes why don't you home ed then you'll be able to supervise her every waking moment, observe every nuance every facial expression, all her non verbal communications every subtle intonation every mannerism. You'll know all about her lessons, course work, prep.
Let's hope you don't have career plans or ambitions or even just need a job to make ends meet?
I sometimes think I'm the only one on here who's goes out to work through both choice and necessity.

[BertrandRussell]

[happygardening]

Bertrand I am perfectly aware that many parents go to work and don't send their children to boarding school, obviously this applies to the vast majority. But the suggestion that you home ed a child is only of any relevance to someone who doesn't go to work through necessity and or choice.
To be around to observe your DC everyday when he/she comes in the door to see what sort of day they've had implies four things, you work only nights or short shifts which finish in time to enable you to be at home by 4, you work part time, you work from home or you don't work. Most people I know with children at senior school who go to work are at work at 4 pm, many don't get home till 7, 8, 9, o'clock at night if not later. Many travel with their jobs. So they are not around carefully obseving their child's mood (I would also question whether this is necessary) every time they come in the door from school.
There are an increasing number of foreign children full boarding in UK boarding schools, all will have siblings and families have different experiences at home, most I talk to genuinely believe that they have been given an wonderful opportunity to receive a significantly better and significantly broader education than they would receive in their own countries most are also exceedingly grateful to their parents for paying for it and are usually hard working and keen to participate in all boarding offers.
I have no idea where the OP is moving too but she feels the education is not of a sufficiently high standard or maybe she doesn't like its ethos and just maybe it would be fair to assume that she discussed it with her DD and all the implications and that between them they agreed boarding would be better. Ok so now she's home sick but as everyone who knows someting about boarding in 2015 keeps saying give her a chance to settle down i.e. two terms then review the situation not one person has said ignore her and leave her to be miserable for rest of her school career whilst you swan off to another country and have lots of new and exciting experiences. I'm pretty sure if this was a parent with a child who was miserable at a day school most would be giving the same advise: it's early days, give her a chance to settle, it's all new etc etc. I personally believe that children need to learn that in life things often get better if you give them a fair chance but you do have to give it a fair chance before bailing out. Two weeks whether it be school, work, a new hobby, or a new dog is not giving something a fair chance.

[SheGotAllDaMoves]

I know a number of parents who work so many hours and have moved so many times that frankly it would be better for their DC if they did board.

But having said that, I would still prefer my DC not to. In fact my DC have always been in schools where some boarded - but mine did not. For me it is not an optimal environment for a child. Yes, it might be better than that child's alternative (home alone/crap school whatever) but that doesn't make it good enough for my children.

The parents of boarders I know tend to fall into three camps.

1. The ones who found just the right school for their DC and it happened to be boarding. They wish it were not so but absolutely make the best of it.
   

1. The ones who dance around saying how utterly marvelous boarding is. How it turns out it's better for DC not to live with their DC. Who knew? How terribly close they are (much closer than families who spend each evening and weekend together, who mostly don't get on you know). How terribly independent their DC are (which it turns out is majorly important at 7/11/13).
   

1. The ones who don't give a shit either way. They've chosen X school. It's a great school. Their DC are going and they're going to like it come what may.